Tertullian insisted upon my going with him to shoot black duck, which were said to be more plentiful than for many years, affording great sport. But water-parties, to my mind, cease to be desirable when coal fires have become agreeable. Nevertheless, _ad sauromatas,_ to oblige a friend. So we overhauled lock, stock, and barrel, which had become rusty since snipe-shooting, and, busying ourselves a whole evening in screwing, unscrewing, oiling, and getting in order our implements to make war upon the black ducks, the morrow found us ready. Tertullian shook me by the shoulders as I lay softly pillowed, and in the midst of pleasant dreams. With a yawn and a groan I acknowledged the salutation, and looking out saw the stars yet shining in the sky. The morning air felt cold! cold! As I stood shivering in my long robes, I was ready to sacrifice my friendship for Tertullian, and to plunge again beneath the warm sheets, and recur to my happy dreams. The rolling of wheels over the frozen ground beneath the windows, and Cudjo's sharp reproaches to the mules, indicated that all parties were on the ground; and although I considered it almost as bad as fighting a duel at that unseasonable hour, I clenched my teeth with determination, as if to preclude the possibility of a shiver. In a few moments we were armed and equipped, provisions for the day were placed in the bottom of the wagon, and Cudjo drove us out on the commencement of the cheerless journey. My friend, lover as he was of aquatic pastimes, and wild-duck shooting, shrugged his shoulders as we passed over the bleak meadows. There had evidently been a fall of snow during the night, somewhere among the Highlands, to judge by the sharper edge of the winds. In the course of half an hour we arrived at a landing-place, where a small creek put up from the bay. Here two negro boatmen, from New-Guinea, a small African settlement in the neighboring woods, had consented to meet us, and row us out in their new sedge-boat, which was first called the Pumpkin-Seed, from some allusion to its shape, but afterward from their own names, THE SAM AND JIM. On arriving at the wharf nothing presented itself but the old mill, with its wheel encased in ice, and as far as the eye could reach, the bleak meadows and the tortuous creek, and the Tinnecum bay. But the black gentlemen who were to be our guides did not show their faces, but were probably with the rest of New-Guinea dreaming of clams and eels, or of the gala-day when their new boat, fresh and gaudily painted, was launched into the black waters, below the dam of the Three-Mile Mill. The 'Sam and Jim' lay high and dry upon the shore, chained, padlocked, and protected from the weather. It must be confessed, that the promise of the day's sport was small. With no Palinurus to guide us, and the wind blowing as if it came from an iceberg, the black ducks might take a new lease of their lives, for all the damage we should do them. Tertullian swore roundly,